by Dominic Acito (@mycamgrlromance)
Having recently relocated to Spain and shifted the band’s lineup to include members of Picore, Sweet Williams have released What’s Wrong With You, an album crackling with energy and intricate songwriting.
Sweet Williams is the brainchild of Brighton’s Thomas House, a veteran of the DIY music scene and a musician whose drive to create is seemingly limitless. I connected with House via Zoom and we discussed his writing process, the DIY scene in Spain and his first experiences learning an instrument.
Dominic Acito: Congratulations on the new record. It's really fantastic. You’ve come out with two albums since lockdown. It's kind of a weird time for a lot of people. Some people view it as an opportunity because there's never been more time to be creative, but also because life isn't really happening at its usual pace, it's hard to find inspiration. How have you found enough inspiration for two records since lockdown
Thomas House: Well, it's a bit of cheat, really. Out of the two that have come out during the pandemic, the most recent one was actually recorded first.
The latest one, the one with the flamingos on it (What’s Wrong With You) was recorded in the summer of 2019. We were living here (Spain) at the time and we recorded it and then I had to go back to the UK for like six months. So, it was recorded but not mixed. Then we got back to Spain at the very end of 2019 and we were getting settled down. I was just about to go back in the studio with the band and mix that album finally and then the pandemic happened. So we were on lockdown for like two months. From the middle of March to the middle of May, we were on a strict lockdown, so we couldn't see anybody, couldn't go to the studio. Then after that, I got the files. During that two months, I got my computer. While I'd been back in the UK and my wife and I spent some time at her parents’ house in France as well, I had a four-track cassette machine so I'd written a bunch of new stuff, with the drum machine on my phone and on a four-track tape. So lockdown hit, I couldn't mix the album that we'd done before, I'd just got this computer, so I decided to record as a kind of experiment, record the stuff that I'd written on the four track at my in-laws' house, record that as an album. Then that ended up coming out before the flamingos. So neither of them were written during. The album with the drum machine was recorded during lockdown. Then when I finished doing that, I went back and mixed the flamingos record, which I'd been waiting to get my hands on.
DA: So, you didn’t have to make any compromises on the record to meet COVID regulations?
TH: It was lucky here because there was only actually two months where we couldn't meet as a band. So the strict lockdown started in March, through to the middle of May, right? So two months, about eight weeks. That was very strict lockdown. Since that’s finished, we have actually been able to go to band practice and shit. So apart from gigs, my musical activity hasn't been that badly curtailed in the same way that it has been to my friends in England.
DA: If things were open, where you are in Spain, is there a place where you can go to like a local bar and try out new material? Is that something that you would do? I'm curious what the scene is like because your band (Picore) is local to Spain.
TH: Those are the guys who are in the group at the moment. They all live here. In fact, like, three of the four of us live within a twenty minute walk of each other's houses. Then Cristian lives out in the countryside. He's moved out of the city recently, but, yeah, the rest of us are all quite close by. There's a DIY venue in the town that we would normally have probably been playing at like once every couple of months, I suppose, either Sweet Williams or the other band that I play in with Pablo, we would have been playing there quite a lot during the last year or so, I imagine, which would have given us time to play new songs. Maybe that would have been a bit more, you know, maybe we would have been writing even more if we had that kind of inspiration, you know, because it's always fun to finish a song or even half finish a song and then go and play it at your next gig just to do something new. So, do you play in a band Dominic?
DA: Yeah. I'm a guitar player and singer.
TH: Okay. Do you write the songs as well?
DA: Yeah, that's why I'm asking, because I love that feeling. It's so encouraging. That's why I was curious how it's received by an audience in Spain.
TH: Well, it's odd because before my wife and I moved here, we'd been living in Brighton, and I'd been playing music in Brighton with various bands for years and years, since the turn of the century, more or less. We were kind of part of a community of friends and musicians and the audience. So, I've gone from playing gigs in Brighton, which could be quite well attended and quite well received to being very much kind of... when I say well attended, I mean, like, 100 people is well attended, and that's amazing.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm not talking about thousands, but that version of Sweet Williams in Brighton would play our own gigs to maybe 100 people or something like that, which was a lot as far as I was concerned. Then here the gigs that we did play before lockdown was like, there were much fewer people. It's a different kind of thing. On the other hand, having toured Spain in the past, it's kind of why we live here now, a big part of why we live here now, because I've been coming here for 13 - 14 years to come and play music nationally in Spain.
So it's kind of an underground DIY music scene in Spain in different cities. Everybody is connected, and people drive a long way to go to a gig. You maybe play to, like, 50 people in Benicarlo, for example, like, 20 of those people have driven from way out of town to come to that gig. So it's kind of small pockets of really committed music fans who are really interested and who will go and see bands that they've never even heard the name of before, just because they're playing at their local venue, which might be 40 kilometers from their house which is their local DIY venue.
The short answer is, I guess we would sometimes play to more people when we were playing in England. We play to fewer people here, but the commitment and the enthusiasm is not at all lacking.
DA: Sometimes I take for granted how close the local DIY spot is.
TH: Right. Well, yeah. I mean, like having lived in Brighton, which is just full of artists and guitar players, and, you know, it's sort of taken for granted. It's really easy to find somewhere to play or find an audience to connect with. Even in terms of England, you're pretty lucky in that respect in Brighton. Then coming to Spain and starting all over again in a way, and finding those pockets of people who are prepared to drive some distance on a Monday night to go and see a band they've never heard of and they'll come up to you after the gig and say, “Hey, I really enjoyed that.”
DA: I like that kind of scene. It seems like it also makes the artists tighter. Are there any other musicians that you see around in Spain or just in Europe in general, that you really admire what they're doing in the same kind of scene that you're involved in?
TH: Well, yeah. I mean, obviously not during the last year or so, we haven't left the city, no one's toured or anything, but, yes, there are a few groups and musicians in Spain that I definitely feel kind of a kinship with like this. As I mentioned, the town Benicarlo. There's a band called KLS from Benicarlo, the individuals involved in it are also really involved in this national DIY scene. They put on gigs in their town, and they will drive a long way to watch other bands.
If that band is not playing in their town, then they'll drive for hours on end to go and see them in Madrid, Don Benito or whatever. So that's KLS, who I recommend. Yeah. Really good. Do you know the band of Black Dice, you know, that band?
DA: No, I don't.
TH: Okay. Rhode Island band. They started out as this kind of post hardcore noise punk sort of thing and then turned into something altogether different, sort of industrial, kind of slightly day glow electronic. There was a transitional point around about their third record, where there was somewhere between the two, kind of a hardcore punk band with these really abstract textural song structures. KLS remind me of that period of the Black Dice. Not an exact copy of it or anything, they're a really interesting band.
Who else do I really like? A few bands that have split up... There was Decapante who were a two-bass-and-drums band. They split up a few years ago now. Sort of heavy, just very heavy, two very loud bass guitars and drums, instrumental stuff. They were really cool. There's a piano player from Madrid called Maria Navidad, who is in a duo called Tostadas. Her music is always fantastic. I still feel a connection to whatever she's doing. There's a band from, I think they were from Barcelona, originally called Alado Sincera, on their last record the guitars had gone a bit cleaner and stuff, so it sort of reminded me a bit of The Sea and Cake and some of that Chicago or post rock influence, but it's still kind of pop. Yeah, I'm really crap at describing bands.
DA: Yeah, it's hard, especially with bands that you've been in, like Sweet Williams. I found one part of the song comparing it to a certain band, and then just like, having that thrown out the window as soon as another part comes in.
TH: That's nice to hear because I think of us very much as a sort of like a rock band, you know, kind of comparable to any other band with guitars and drums.
DA: Is there any band you've been compared to that you're like, that's exactly what we're going for?
TH: I mean, I can see when people compare us to the bands that we usually get compared to. I'm like, yeah, I can see that. But no, we never really. I've really avoided sort of trying to sound like any particular band to the point where I've never told other people in the band to listen to particular records or anything. That's why I feel bad sort of describing a band by comparing them to other bands, because I always try to get musical ideas across without referring to other bands.
It's cool to leave it a bit more open to interpretation. You know what I mean? We definitely have bands that are huge influences that people have mentioned, and I'm like, great.
DA: Yeah, you mentioned that you view Sweet Williams as a rock band. This most recent album feels almost like a guitar record. One of the highlights of the record is the guitar tones. Are you an equipment geek or do you just have a sound that you like to gravitate towards that you stick to?
TH: More the latter. I don't really know as much about different guitars and pickups and amplifiers and pedals and things as a lot of other guitarists that I know, a lot of my friends in bands and things know more about that kind of stuff than me. I just sort of happened on it when I was about twenty, I bought a Telecaster and I really felt like that was the guitar for me. I like it, it just works. It feels solid. It sounds cool and that's the guitar that I still play now. My amp is still in England, but it's just a Marshall, a secondhand Marshall. It was what I could get in the classified ads in the paper in the UK called the Friday Ad. Right. So, I found this amplifier in the Friday Ad for a couple of hundred quid, and it worked, I got a sound that I like out of that set up. I had the amplifier modified by a friend of mine called Danny. He said, I can make this sound better for you if you want, and modified it for a bit more gain and a bit more warmth and stuff. I was always really happy with that as a sound.
Then my amp’s in England, so that's not my amp on the newest record. I'm always trying to kind of get a sound a bit like that from a different amp. That's the sound that I'm going for. I think a lot of tone is in the actual playing, you know?
Having played the same songs with different lineups of the band as well, you notice that it really, I think a lot of the time, the sound that you get out of your instrument, whether it's a guitar or a bass, has got a lot more to do with the way you grip the notes and the way that you attack them than it does even the guitar or the amp, I think.
DA: You're usually playing in standard tuning. Are you into trying alternate tunings or anything like that?
TH: I think everything on the recent record is all standard. There's been, like, a bit of drop D in the past or a bit of like DADGAD.
DA: I noticed that UK bands seem to do open tunings like DADGAD more often.
TH: In the UK there's, like quite a crossover between this kind of underground folk scene and then the kind of what you might call like noise rock or indie, or whatever Sweet Williams, I guess the DIY scene, there's a crossover between the DIY rock scenes and the DIY folk scene. So you get a lot of those bands sharing the same bills. You get people who are playing in, like Steve from the Unit Ama, who are a rock band, like in the same way that the Sweet Williams is a rock band, he also plays as Horse Loom and that is very sort of connected and adjacent to what he does in the in the rock band, but it's more acoustic based, a lot of finger picking.
So you get people who are going between those two things and also just people who are doing it alongside each other. So maybe that's why DADGAD is popular with the English rock bands. I think it has something to do with the folk kind of cross over.
DA: I had thought that it was maybe that DADGAD was taught more often in the UK. Did you learn music in school? Did they teach guitar at all? Did you have to learn on your own or what was your introduction to playing music?
TH: My introduction to playing music was learning the recorder. Everybody did that a little bit. Then there was the option to do violin classes. I put my hand up to do violin classes that for a couple of years, didn't get on with it, but my sister played the piano and I wanted to play the piano as well. So my parents were really so supportive of that, and I played piano for a few years. Then I learned a bit of music theory from playing the piano and then taught myself guitar from that and from a few books and from playing along to records and things, taught myself. I never really had guitar lessons, just informal lessons, like sitting around with guitarists from other bands and getting them to show how do you do that little bit.
DA: That's the best way to learn. So you do know a bit of music theory. Does that come into play a lot with Sweet Williams? It feels like Sweet Williams does some much more interesting post-hardcore song structures.
TH: Yeah, I think it probably does. I think again, my piano teacher explained some things to me really clearly and really, really interesting and useful ways about music theory. That was really helpful, still really helpful. Yeah, and it's not like it's all based on theory, but it certainly is really helpful. When you see those things that people tell you as a kind of a tool or a challenge, there's something about, like 5/4 is a thing. Songs that are in 5/4 time is a thing. I will write a riff that's in 5/4. So you see these things as a bit of a challenge and then they become part of your vocabulary, and I think that 's definitely fed into it in that kind of way. Also, if you're writing multiple parts and trying to get things to fit together and program a drum machine to play this slightly nonstandard structure and things, having that vocabulary is really useful.
It just saves you a lot of time. I mean, you can do more things more quickly. Then if other people in the band know a little bit about that stuff as well, it's really easy to communicate your ideas when you're saying, “I want you to play the fifth instead of the root.”
DA: I'm curious about the writing process of Sweet Williams. Do you just kind of show up to a band practice with a handful of riffs and see where people come join along, or do you have these things kind of fully formed?
TH: 90% of the time it’s fully formed. So on that record, the recent one, I wrote everything. I kind of laid everything out. I still had four track tape at the time, so I laid out all the guitar parts, the structures, the bass parts, the sort skeleton of the drum part, at least the placement of the kick and the snare, because that's really important to me.
I write all of it basically, and then make three reluctant dudes play it. One person who was in the band years ago described it as Tom House and Three Reluctant Dudes, which was kind of crushing but reasonably accurate.
DA: I'm curious how lyrics fit into the writing process, too. Is that something that you have ahead of time? I'm not sure this is intentional or not, but the Sweet Williams lyrics are quite difficult to find online if you don't buy the record. So, I wonder if you just view them as not as important, or maybe you just want people to hear them for themselves.
TH: I would like people to hear them for themselves. I mean, there's one record where the lyrics are printed and stuff. I'm not particular. I'm not overly secretive about them. A friend of mine did recently say, “Can you tell me the lyrics to the new album?” and I just didn't feel like it for whatever reason, I really didn't feel like it with this one, we deliberately, deliberately didn't print them.
I haven't put them anywhere online, because I think they're fairly clear. I think it's there. Hopefully, if you want to know what I'm saying, you can you can hear it if you listen close enough. They're not like buried or anything. No, they're really important. I usually write the music first, but I leave space. I know where the words are going to go. Then it takes me quite a while to really figure out exactly what the words are going to be.
It takes a bit of time. A lot of the time you write stuff down and you think it's cool. It looks cool and it sounds cool in your head. Then you try it out and it just doesn't work at all. It's no good or it doesn't feel right. If you're going to say something, you want to be able to get into it. So, yeah, it takes a while to do the words.
DA: Are there any lyrics on this record that you're particularly proud of or that you look back and think ‘I really, really kind of got across what I was looking for.’
TH: I think the second song on the record, it's called “Steal It”. I think maybe that one. I like the words for that one. There's some good bits in there. I think I did better on that record than maybe I have in the past. I think the lyrics are okay on that one. They're alright on that.
DA: Do you see the lyrics as having kind of a different role when you are in other roles in other groups? You've been in a lot of other bands, like Harres, where you're the vocalist. Do you view lyrics in a different light if you're in a project like that?
TH: Not really. No. I think I always want to put something together that complements the music rather than, I don't want to, you know, it has to suit the mood of the music, you know. I guess it's got to have something to do with what the music is saying to me, whether it's my own music or music written by other people. So in that sense, it is different writing words for somebody else's music. It is a bit different.
I feel a little bit more freedom doing it for my own songs, for Sweet Williams songs or songs that I've written the music for. I worry a little bit more about it when it's somebody else's music, because I feel more like you just don't want to let somebody else down or disappoint. So there’s always the other people on my mind when I'm writing those things. It was like that when I was in a band called Charlottefield years ago, which again, I wrote most of the music, but it was a bit more of a regular band. We had the same lineup, or nearly the same lineup for eight years, and definitely the same line up for five years. When I was writing songs for that band, I was thinking about the other people in the band and trying to do stuff that we could all stand behind. Whereas with Sweet Williams, since it's been me and three reluctant dudes, I've just been like, I'm just going to please myself. I'm going to do what I want to do.
DA: Have you been able to collaborate because you're in a number of other projects with other people and during lockdown, you haven't been able to travel. Have you been able to exchange ideas with other projects?
TH: Yeah. Well, there's a new Haress LP. The second one is sort of just being finished. It's just being mixed now. They recorded the music to that just before the pandemic in the UK. Then they sent it to me and I did the vocals for a couple of songs on it here in my flat in Zaragoza. So, I've been able to do that. I don't know if I can be specific, but a friend of mine got me to play guitar on a project that he's working on, which hopefully will be finished soon.
I don't know what form that's going to take. I got sent some bass and drum stems and I just put guitars on it and send it back, and he was like, “right now I'm going to send it to other people.” All these other people are going to do their part. Then we'll see where it goes. Also i've been working with Pablo, who's the drummer in Sweet Williams. He writes and records as Les Conches Velasques. We did a Conches record last summer, sort of during the pandemic, but after lockdown because everyone in that band lives in the city. In fact, one of them lives on the other side of that wall, our next door neighbor.
DA: It must feel good that you have a lot of stuff going because it feels like things are kind of starting to ramp up again. It must feel pretty anti-climactic to come out with a record like What's Wrong With You and not be able to play any of that stuff live. Do you have plans for the future of Sweet Williams at the moment? Are you thinking about the next record, the next show, or just kind of working on other projects and seeing how things open up?
TH: As far as live stuff is concerned, it is a bit bleak because, I mean, it's getting to the point where we'd be able to play in Spain again quite soon, but under distancing conditions, under post COVID conditions. I think we would be able to play again soon, but the people in the group have got other commitments, other things going on. So, I don't think that's going to happen. Then, of course, Brexit really affected getting in and out of the UK as well as the pandemic. It doesn't look like we'll be playing in the UK anytime soon, even when the pandemic kind of dies down.
I don't know how. I honestly don't know what's going to happen, but writing wise, I'm always thinking about the next record, that's well on the way, but live is... I don't know. I don't really want to entertain the idea too much until it becomes a distinct possibility.